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Education protest set for Austin today

AUSTIN — Organizers of a rally today say they hope theirs is one of the biggest and noisiest of protests held here since the Texas Legislature adjourned last summer.

“Parents, teachers and students are now seeing the impact of the funding cuts to public education and they don’t like it,” said Allen Weeks, executive director of Austin Voices and Youth, one of the organizers of the Save Texas Schools rally.

If the rally is similar or larger than the one a year ago, thousands of parents, teachers and students from across the state will gather in Austin to protest the massive public education funding cuts the 82nd Legislature approved, Weeks said.

Although there will be a variety of speakers addressing the rally, including some state legislators, perhaps the best known is former CBS News anchor Dan Rather, a native Texan.

“He’s concerned as a grandparent,” Weeks said. “So, he agreed to speak.”

On the website www.savetxschools.org organizers give more details for the 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. rally.

The protesters “will again send a loud message that we plan to fight for our kids and that we can do better for them and our state’s future,” said Linda Bridges, president of Texas AFT (American Federation of Teachers), a teachers union whose leaders and some members plan to join the rally.

“Last year we gathered by the thousands to protest these cuts but were rebuffed by some politicians who claimed that the schools would be just fine, that the planned cuts would be absorbed outside the classroom,” Bridges said in reference to the $5.4 billion cut to public education funding the lawmakers approved before adjourning.

However, “Statewide we’ve seen larger class sizes, lack of instructional materials and loss of programs to help struggling students succeed,” Bridges said.

Rep. Four Price, R-Amarillo, who struggled with his decision whether to vote for the school funding bill before voting for it, said he understands some of the frustration with the funding cuts.

“I don’t take the criticism personally,” Price said. “If they are unhappy with how the system works, we need to hear about it, and as legislators, we need to be on top of it.”

Rep. John Frullo, R-Lubbock, who did not struggle with his decision to vote for the school funding bill because in his view the Legislature had no other choice, said he also understands the frustration some people feel.

“I am on both sides of that equation,” Frullo said. “I have two kids in public schools, but on the other hand I am also representing my constituents and the people of Texas and they’ve told us that we have to live within our means.

“At the end of the day we did the best with what we had to work with,” Frullo said.

However, there are groups highly critical of the rally and of its organizers. “They keep saying that we cut school funding to the bare bones, but the fact is that we’ve been putting more money into public education,” said Peggy Venable, state director of Americans for Prosperity Texas, a leading conservative group.

As she spoke to a reporter, Venable pointed to a chart from the Texas Comptroller’s Office that she said proves her point that the amount of money the Legislature has put in the public schools since the 1990s is five times the growth of the student population.

“What we want to do is encourage school districts to tighten their belts just like families do,” Venable said. “We want to see good teachers stay in the classroom.”

Weeks said he and other public education advocates are used to criticism from Venable and other leading conservatives.

Besides denouncing the proposed cuts, what the rally hopes to accomplish is to motivate Texas voters to go to the polls this year, Weeks said.

“People need to elect legislators committed to public education,” he said. “You can’t cut beyond a certain point, but in the last session that’s what our legislators did and now we are seeing the consequences of those cuts.”